Former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn has warned that Western nations must prepare for a future dominated by China and India, whose rapid economic rise will soon fundamentally alter the balance of power.(AFP/File/Paul J. Richards)
Posted on 11/25/2006 8:05:05 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SYDNEY (AFP) - Western nations must prepare for a future dominated by China and India, whose rapid economic rise will soon fundamentally alter the balance of power, former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn has warned.
Wealthy countries were failing to understand the impact of the invevitable growth of the two Asian powerhouses, Wolfensohn said in the 2006 Wallace Wurth Memorial Lecture at the University of New South Wales at the weekend.
"It's a world that is going to be in the hands of these countries which we now call developing," said Australian-born Wolfensohn, who held the top job at the global development bank for a decade until last year.
Rich nations needed to try to capitalise on the inevitable emergence of what would become the engine of the world's economic activity before it was too late, he said.
"Most people in the rich countries don't really look at what's happening in these large developing countries," said Wolfensohn, who is now chairman of Citigroup International Advisory Board and his own investment and advisory firm.
Within 25 years, the combined gross domestic products of China and India would exceed those of the Group of Seven wealthy nations, he said.
"This is not a trivial advance, this is a monumental advance."
Wolfensohn said that somewhere between 2030 and 2040, China would become the largest economy in the world, leaving the United States behind.
By 2050, China's current two trillion US dollar GDP was set to balloon to 48.6 trillion, while that of India, whose economy weighs in at under a trillion dollars, would hit 27 trillion, he said, citing projections by investment bank Goldman Sachs.
In comparison, the US's 13 trillion dollar income would expand to only 37 trillion -- 10 trillion behind China.
"You will have in the growth of these countries a 22 times growth between now and the year 2050 and the current rich countries will grow maybe 2.5 times."
In light of these forecasts, it was clear that Western nations and Australia were not investing enough in educating the next generation to be able to take advantage of the coming realignment, he said.
"The fact that not enough of our young people are preparing themselves with knowledge, experience, residence and language to deal certainly with China, although India has the benefit of an English language, it does seem to me that it presents a formidable challenge."
Wolfensohn pointed to both China's and India's recent substantial investments in Africa as an example of how the two emerging giants were exercising their increasing clout on the global stage.
"Within the last two weeks the world has been put on notice that Africa is no longer the basket case that everybody had historically thought it was but is now front and centre in terms of development by India and China."
The phenomenal rally by the two countries was a return to form rather than a novelty, he said, as they together had accounted for 50 percent of global GDP from the 1500s until the industrial revolution reduced that to between five and seven percent.
Former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn has warned that Western nations must prepare for a future dominated by China and India, whose rapid economic rise will soon fundamentally alter the balance of power.(AFP/File/Paul J. Richards)
Africa is still a basket case, and will be for a long time.
This is pure conjecture, education didnt fuel the industrial revolution, or even the tech revolution
creativity, persistence and just dumb luck did.
These pompous bloviators of economic doom are blinded
by pessimism. May they meet with FSB agents bearing polonium supositories.
I think India and China are rather immune to that. The big issue is not so much Islam, unless it tanks Europe, but rather whether China can transition into a great power without going through what Germany did, ie do a dalliance with nationalistic state capitalistic hubristic agression. I think the answer is probably yes, thanks to nukes. I am an optimist.
He is a leftist. More money for education is NOT the answer. Higher birthrates is the answer.
China has more than 3 times our population.
A little fact worth mentioning... The per capita income of a Chinese citizen will still be less than half that of his American counter part even if these projections hold true (which I doubt).
An Islamic jihad MIGHT work agains India, as the Muslims in India have had a running street battle with the non-Muslims in that nation for some sixty years or so, from before the time India was granted independence from the British Empire.
What was once "India" is in fact three countries now, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. The first two are Muslim countries, and the fracture was along religious lines. There is even yet one province (Kashmir) which cannot be equitably divided.
In China, there is no such ambiguity. Muslims are very much a persecuted minority there, apparently the only sure way to manage the unrest they cause so much of elsewhere. Of course, the Chinese treat most religious organizations in a similar manner, so it is nothing specifically directed against Muslims. The Red Chinese are equal-opportunity in their suppression of religion. Even Buddha is accorded very little official recognition.
The vast preponderance of young Chinese males, with no potential mates to be found in their own country, are probably just about ripe to volunteer for an expeditiionary force to calm the entire Middle East, if they can pick up some foreign female companionship along the way, by stealing the Muslims' women after they decimate the male population.
Genghis Khan rolling into town with some high-tech support. Who said there is no hope for the world?
bookmark
This is all baloney.
This is another case of would-be futurists predicting the future based on todays technology.
Nanotech changes everything.
Desktop assemblers will appear long before 2050 and will change the old equations where western high-wage workforces cannot compete with large low-wage workforces.
http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=+nanotech+assemblers&btnG=Search
When you can make your own gadgets on a desktop from raw materials then of what possible use are a billion Chinese
willing to work for pennies?
The tech world is in for some amazing changes over the next few decades....any predictions of the future that do not take nanotech onto consideration are simply faulty.
Yes. People keep forgetting that.
And the Chinese are trying to do it the same way as the Japanese tried, by artificially keeping the value of their currency low.
It will catch up with them eventually.
The Africans are too busy complaining about the damages done by western colonialism. They fail to realize that history will be mild compared to what the Chinese are willing to inflict. China isn't worried about Amnesty International complaining about their mistreatment of people in Africa. The Chinese likely pay their bills.
Both India and China have the worlds only nuclear Islamic nation on their borders. That really cannot be a good thing in the long term.
Both countries are cheap manufacturers of products designed, tested and developed elsewhere.
Both countries have huge populations to feed maintain and control and both have tried unsuccessfully to use government force to reduce population.
Their per capita productivity is low; it is just the mass of it that looks so strong.
Err do you mean that Islamic nation which is China's oldest strategic ally,outside of North Korea???The One which buys the most weaponry from Beijing & who's nuke programme is entirely Chinese in origin???Well Beijing should be thrilled by the presence of that state given that it keeps the injuns on their toes.
Africa will soon see a new era of colonization as they become economic dependencies of India and China.
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